


Hunger

by Sir_Bedevere



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-15
Updated: 2013-01-18
Packaged: 2017-11-25 16:02:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/640588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sir_Bedevere/pseuds/Sir_Bedevere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'No one was starving to death. Not on his watch.'</p><p>AKA - One more reason why Davos made that trip to Storm's End</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Davos

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to do this for ages. I just didn't know how I wanted to do it.

In Flea Bottom the rains poured relentlessly, the novelty of the rare summer storm having long since passed with the end of the third day of it. Now on the fifth day, the streets had turned into rivers of filth, ankle deep, that crept under the doors of the houses and left stinking puddles on the floors. Sanya splashed through this deluge, a scarf bound round her head to keep her hair dry, a small parcel under her arm. The street was quiet, thanks to the weather, and the woman was glad for it – even parts of Flea Bottom were worse than the others and this was one of them. The fewer people on the street here, the safer you were.

She stopped at one of the tiny houses tucked into a corner of a shadowy square and knocked at the door. There was a silence from inside, a deafening silence that turned her stomach, and it was a relief when the door opened. The man who had opened it peered out at her and smiled. The smile was the only familiar thing about him – he looked tired, his beard was unkempt and he was losing weight like it was melting from him.

“Sanya,” he said, “Am I pleased to see you.”

“Don’t be too hasty,” she said grimly, handing him the parcel, “I could only get half a loaf without him noticing.”

“That is more than I could get,” the man said, clutching the parcel to his chest, “You know I’m stuck until my man gets back from Braavos.”

“Have you heard from him yet?” she asked anxiously. It was only recently – very recently – that Sanya found out exactly what her old friend did to earn his keep. Davos had taken her into his confidence in a moment of crisis, when one of his ‘jobs’ had ended in failure, the man he worked for was across the sea and there was no money to feed himself or the children. He’d been desperate, wild eyed in a way she had never seen him, and she promised to help him in any way she could. No one in Flea Bottom ever begrudged anyone else their ability to make a living and Davos had always been generous with the little he had. It was getting more difficult for her to do anything now – the baker she worked with was starting to notice the missing scraps and leftovers.

“No,” Davos sighed, “And every place I tried for work turned me away again.”

He looked so miserable that, despite her guilt, she just couldn’t wait to get away.

“He is expecting me back,” she said, “I’m so sorry, Davos. I’ll try again.”

And she left, quickly. Davos watched her go, the one lifeline he had in these wretched days. Closing the door, he put the parcel on the scrubbed table and went upstairs. Marya was sleeping, her face drawn. Davos knelt beside her and pressed an ear to her swollen stomach. There was a slight movement, as though the child had kicked out, and Davos stood, reassured that the babe was still living despite everything. He dreaded the day, a day drawing ever nearer, when the child might not react to him at all. On that day, he did not know what he might do.

Next door, his two boys weren’t so reassuring. Four year old Dale played with a wooden soldier on the bed, mumbling incoherently where usually he was so active, so vibrant in his story telling when he played. Allard, the younger, was laid on his side watching Dale play with dull, lifeless eyes. Dale looked up at his father hopefully.

“Was that Sanya at the door, Papa?”

“It was. How about some nice bread to eat?”

Dale was out of the door so fast that Davos hardly saw him move. He scooped up Allard and followed downstairs. Dale was sat at the table, bouncing up and down with hunger but keeping his hands off the bread as he had been taught. Without standing on ceremony Davos ripped off a third of the loaf and handed it to Dale.

“Eat it slowly, make it last.”

“Yes, Papa.”

Pouring a little of their precious milk into a bowl, Davos tore up the next third and soaked the pieces. Taking Allard on his lap, he began to spoon up the mixture and patiently feed him. Allard was so weak he could hardly even swallow on his own. Davos’ heart ached as the little boy struggled, and he caught Dale watching him anxiously as well. His little brow was furrowed and the dark smudges under his eyes made him look old beyond his years. If they survived this, Davos promised himself, Dale would never be given a reason to look like that again.

He felt tears, hopeless tears, pricking at his eyes when Marya appeared at the top of the stairs.

“Mama, Sanya brought bread,” Dale said, waving his crust, “Come on!”

She came slowly down the stairs and lowered herself onto a chair, glancing worriedly at Allard as she did.

“Is he eating it?”

“Getting there slowly,” Davos said, his eyes cast downwards. Marya didn’t blame him for what was happening to them but that didn’t mean he found it any easier to look her in the eye. With his elbow he pushed the remainder of the loaf towards her. She picked it up delicately and was about to take a bite when she lowered it from her mouth.

“Have you eaten, my love?”

“Yes,” Davos said stoically, his eyes once more on Allard. Marya had always been able to tell when he was lying and he didn’t really expect any different now, but there was no way he was eating any of this precious meal today.

“Dale, has Papa had anything to eat?”

Perhaps the boy understood why his father had lied or perhaps he just couldn’t find the energy to argue but Dale nodded immediately.

“Yes.”

Marya didn’t look convinced but perhaps the thought of the babe was enough to sway her as she nibbled delicately at the bread. The gnawing feeling in his belly was not to be sated but the worry knawing at his mind quietened a little, at least until tomorrow.  
The guilt though – that was the strongest feeling of all and the only one that couldn’t be eased. That night Davos lay in his bed with Marya clinging to him. She loved him, she had whispered, before she went to sleep, and he mustn’t give up hope. Sal would be back any day now and everything would be alright. Her faith in him, unshaken, physically hurt. How could she still love him when he was putting her and the boys through this?

A small cry from the next room roused him and he slipped away from his wife. Allard was whimpering and Dale, awoken to a state of only half consciousness, was joining in. Davos knew what the problem was and he knew he could do almost nothing to solve it, so he did the only thing he could. He scooped up one son in each arm and carried them downstairs. The milk was almost gone, and he knew he would regret it, but he poured out what was left into two cups and warmed it in the embers of the dying fire. They drank the milk greedily, still half asleep, and he tucked them into bed more comfortable than they had been before.

Back in his room he pulled on his clothes and crept back downstairs. It was the middle of the night but the fishing boats would be going out soon, and they were his last hope for some source of income until Sal came back. They had turned him away a dozen times already but this time he would go down to the harbour and refuse to leave, until either someone gave him a job or the goldcloaks dragged him away.

No one was starving to death. Not on his watch.


	2. Stannis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turns out I've been spelling Renly's name wrong all this time...who knew, right? :D

People were starving to death. Starving to death on his watch.

Every morning, as the long months stretched on and the food didn’t, Lord Stannis Baratheon had taken to doing the rounds in order to see how many men he had lost during the night. They always died at night, just lay down to rest and never got back up. Starvation made a mockery of men before it killed them, made them weak as babies and even more helpless. It made them desperate – his men gnawed on the bones that their besiegers sent to mock them as though they were something to be grateful for. He didn’t chastise them though, or order them to stop; the men he had who had hung on as long as they had were the best of men and deserved only a reward that would probably never come for the things they had endured.

It was getting to a tipping point though. The supplies were gone, the animals were gone, the rats were gone and still there was no sign of Robert. Stannis stopped at the battlements facing the sea, as he had done every morning, and looked for a sign of hope.

There was none.

They lost six men during the night. The men who had the strength laid the bodies in a row for their young lord to inspect. Two of the dead men were old and had been suffering with sickness in the chest for some time. The other four weren’t much older than the lord himself, faces pinched with the hunger that had been their slayer. Stannis knew all of their names, knew the names of his whole garrison, and had written upon every death to the family of the soldier. The pile of papers on the desk grew every day but he persevered. One day, perhaps, he would send them.

“Have them put with the others,” he said, handing over the key to the dungeon, “And bring the key straight back to me.”

The captain nodded grimly. It had been after the first few deaths that Maester Cressen had made the discrete suggestion that any man who died, until the arrangements for his sea burial could be made, should be locked away from the living.

“Lest the hunger of those still living gets the better of them,” he’d said.

“Are you suggesting that-”

“I am, my lord,” the maester said apologetically, “Starving men are dying men and dying men are desperate. And in moments of desperation even the most vile acts become acceptable.”

The maester was abed now, driven to a state of near delirium. The man wasn’t young, despite his protests that he also was not old, and the situation was starting to get the better of him. The first strain of any sickness would kill him, and so Stannis now kept Renly away from the maester as well in the hope of preserving them both a little longer.

Renly’s hunger made him manic and his brother knew he would need to worry about him only when he stopped being everywhere at once. The little boy was the most well-fed of anyone in the castle, as one would expect; the men gave him scraps whenever they had something to share and Stannis had been giving the boy as much of his own as he could before Cressen noticed. In many of the more recent dark days, Renly had been the only thing to give the men cause to raise a smile. Stannis worried for him though; the manic energy had no source other than Renly’s own inexhaustible supply, which would one day have to run out, and the boy didn’t look well. He was so thin the captain of the garrison could get his hands around his waist and have them meet in the middle, and he always looked tired. Renly was nine and Renly was hardy, like all Baratheons, but he was only a child in the end. A child who Robert, in his usual blustering style, was allowing to starve to death.

Late that evening, Stannis was in his office when Renly came crashing through the door. Stannis looked up irritably, about to chastise him, when he saw the half eaten onion in his brother’s hand. An actual onion.

“Where did you get that?”

“A man brought them for us!” Renly cried, “He brought a whole boat full of food!”

Impatiently he rounded the desk and grabbed his brother’s hand to drag him down to the courtyard. The men who could help had already carried up some boxes from the hidden harbour, watched by a plain, common looking man with a small smile on his face.  
He did not know what his men were expecting of him but to Stannis, what he did next made perfect sense. He reacted in the only way he saw fit, drawing his knife and grabbing the man by his shirtfront, holding the weapon to his throat. Renley cried out but the stranger barely reacted.

“Lord Baratheon?” he said, his voice thick with an accent that placed him very firmly as being from Flea Bottom.

“And you are, smuggler?”

“A friend, I hope.”

“What do you have to prove such a claim?” Stannis growled, “How do I know you are not a Tyrell spy?”

The stranger did something unexpected then. He tried to shrug his shoulders.

“I cannot prove it, my lord,” he said, “And I do not blame you for not trusting me.”

“Commendable,” Stannis said, “Now tell me the truth before I cut your throat.”

The man sighed a little and shrugged again, “I know something of hunger, my lord. I know how you cannot sleep for worrying, about your men.”

Stannis gritted his teeth and said nothing, so the man continued, his voice stronger than before.

“I know how you must worry for the little lord, that you look at him and wish that he would never have to suffer through something like this again.”

The man’s brown eyes were soft and Stannis had to look away, because he did not know if he could allow another to know so much of him. The garrison was silent around them, waiting with bated breath. They were starving and still they waited for him. Renly was not so well behaved.

“Stannis!” he said, taking a large bite of his onion as though to demonstrate his point, “He gave me this. I don’t care if he is a spy or a pirate or a smuggler. He gave me food. He is like a hero in the songs!”

With a sigh, Stannis dropped his hands and the men cheered, they actually cheered, pouncing on the crates. The smuggler smiled again and turned to Renly, who was staring up at him with a look of unbridled wonder on his face.

“I am Davos, my young lord,” he said, “I am not a hero but enjoy your food.”

“I will,” Renly nodded, turning back to the crates, “Stannis, I’m going to take some to Maester Cressen. I can see him now, can’t I?”

“Yes,” Stannis said gruffly, “But be quiet around him. He is not well.” 

“Yes, I know!”

Renly sprinted away, some of the precious food cradled in his shirt front. Davos was smiling as he watched, clearly at ease with youngsters and knowing of their ways. Eventually he turned to Stannis, who was watching him with narrowed eyes. The ease he demonstrated with Renly was not so evident here. He dropped a neat bow as though he had been doing it his whole life, but his face had tightened and he swallowed before he could speak.

“And to you, my lord. Davos of Flea Bottom, at your service.”

“Davos, welcome and thanks,” Stannis said stiffly, “My very grateful thanks.”


End file.
